As Prince Evidence Competition Celebrates Its 40th Year, a Moot Court Honor Society Reunion Set for April 5
RSVP to the Moot Court Honor Society Reunion Here
Over four decades of Brooklyn Law School’s Dean Jerome Prince Memorial Evidence Competition, there have been a raft of memorable moments: dramatic reveals at a final round, U.S. Supreme Court justices hearing oral arguments (and then joining students at the after-party), and student-composed songs, played during the breaks, that cut through the tension with humorous takes on the cases’ themes. But the competition is especially revered as the sole U.S. moot court competition based on the laws of evidence, and for its highly original cases, written by a team of Moot Court Honor Society students, that imagine where evidence law might go in the future.
“The Prince Competition has been a major event at Brooklyn Law School for 40 years, building on the reputation of the school as a leader in the law of evidence,” said Professor Stacy Caplow, faculty adviser to the Moot Court Honor Society from 2016 to 2024 and former associate dean for experiential education. “Law students from around the country, judges from prestigious courts, lawyers from the metropolitan area, and alumni have the opportunity to participate in a competition that is universally praised as ‘the best.’”
From the beginning, Moot Court Honor Society students have facilitated the competition, proudly playing host to some of the country’s most prominent judges and working with faculty members to research and write the competition problem that presents a challenging tableau for students from other law schools.
This year’s 40th anniversary competition, from April 3 to April 5, will summon an all-star Moot Court Honor Society alumni panel of presiding final round judges: Hon. Claire Kelly ’93, Judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade; Hon. Ramon Reyes Jr. ’92, U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY); and Hon. Jennifer Philpott Wilson ’01, U.S. District Court Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
On Saturday, April 5, Moot Court Honor Society (MCHS) alumni are cordially invited to join us for the final round and the festive MCHS reunion reception that will immediately follow. Register for the reception here.
As we gear up for this landmark anniversary, take a look back at the people and events that have made Prince an ongoing standout.
Evidence Law in Brooklyn’s DNA
When several members of the 1985 and 1986 Moot Court Honor Society (overseen by faculty adviser Professor Emerita Ursula Bentele) had the idea to launch a competition that saluted Brooklyn Law’s place in the field of evidence law, and to name it in honor of legal lion and former Dean Jerome Prince, it made perfect sense to Bentele and then-dean David Trager.
A renowned evidence scholar, Prince was the editor of the leading treatise on evidence law, Richardson on Evidence, a work first published by Brooklyn Law School’s founder William Payson Richardson. “Jerome Prince had a stellar reputation for evidence,” said President and Dean Emerita Joan Wexler. “And he had a reputation beyond the Law School; everyone had Richardson on Evidence on their shelves. The competition was a natural way to honor him and capitalize on this specialty. Building on that over the years, Brooklyn Law School became known as the place for the evidence competition.”
In addition, then-Suzanne J. and Norman Miles Professor of Law Margaret Berger was a venerated evidence law scholar, with the late Hon. Jack Weinstein, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of NY (who was also an adjunct professor and judged early Prince competitions), co-authored the foundational treatise on the Federal Rules of Evidence, Weinstein’s Evidence Manual.
One of those MCHS members who championed the creation of the competition, was the late Carol Edmead ’85, who went on to become a justice for the New York County Supreme Court Civil Term.
When the competition launched in 1986, there were 16 law schools participating; by 1990, there were 28, and soon 36 schools became the standard (frequently with a waiting list to participate). Over time, more than 100 different law schools have competed.
Distinguished Judges
In addition to a roster of esteemed preliminary round judges, the Prince Competition has had the good fortune to host final-round judges from the highest courts in the land, including the U.S. Supreme Court. A few of those notables, listed by year, are below:
1986: Jerome Prince, who continued to teach evidence law after he had retired as dean in 1971, served as one of the preliminary round judges in the inaugural 1986 competition, as well as those in 1987 and 1988.
1986: Hon. Robert H. Bork, who served as U.S. Solicitor General, acting U.S. Attorney General, and judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, presided over the final round.
1987: Hon. Dolores K. Sloviter, who was the first woman judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. She was Chief Judge from 1991 to 1998.
1988: Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then sitting on U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, before taking her seat as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1993. The 1988 case involved whether evidence concerning a corporation’s character traits of integrity, honesty, and lawfulness was admissible pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 404(a).
1990: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia agreed to judge the competition, said Ursula Bentele, “but being an observant Catholic, he said of the traditional Sunday final round, ‘I go to Mass on Sunday. So how about Saturday?’ We switched the day, and it’s been held on Saturday ever since.”
After presiding over the final round—in a case that involved whether defense counsel’s statement to the press was admissible as evidence against the defendant—Scalia gamely joined the reception party, held onboard a docked boat that was part of Manhattan’s Water Club. When the boat’s captain offered to take the group on a trip to see the Statue of Liberty, Bentele was concerned that the Justice might not want to stay that long. But when asked, he was delighted to join the impromptu trip. “He had ball, talking to all the students and posing for photos with them,” Bentele said. “He loved a good party,”
2001: Hon. Samuel A. Alito, Jr., twice judged Prince final rounds—in 2001, when he sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and again in 2010, then as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. In 2010, Alito also shared a lively discussion (See page 10 of Brooklyn Law Notes) with faculty, students, and fellow Prince judges before the final round, offering a rare look at life inside the Supreme Court.
2005: Hon. Judith S. Kaye, Chief Judge, New York Court of Appeals, was the first woman to be appointed to the New York Court of Appeals.
Faculty Leaders Inspiring Talented Legal Minds
Every Prince organizing and problem-writing team has been supervised by faculty who bring their expertise, dedication, and creativity to inspire students and bring about successful and innovative competitions year after year.
Founding faculty advisor Bentele (now Professor of Law Emerita), an appellate advocacy expert who taught criminal and capital punishment law, directed the Law School’s former Capital Defender and Federal Habeas Clinic, and advised the Prince team until 2015, was joined first by Professor Margaret Berger.
“Margaret was key in the beginning,” said Bentele. “Her vast and deep knowledge of evidence law, combined with a creative instinct that helped develop fanciful fact patterns to raise novel issues for teams to argue, made for some lively, edifying, and at times downright entertaining discussions.”
The late Professor Robert Pitler ’66, who taught Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Evidence, and was the principal architect of the 1991 proposed New York Evidence Code, joined as a Prince Competition adviser in 1994 and served with aplomb for 20 years.
The combination of Pitler, a practicing attorney who had spent many years in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, and Berger, the evidence scholar, was, said, Bentele, “brilliant and magical. Margaret had a laser focus, an almost scientific mind. And Bob really nurtured the students. He had the tenacity of a bulldog when it came to doing things right.”
The late Professor Mary “Mollie” Falk, a luminary as a teacher and scholar in the field of legal writing, served as adviser with Pitler and Berger for 12 years.
Another expert contributor was the late Professor Richard Farrell ’64, a revered member of the faculty for more than 50 years, a leading authority on the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules, and author of Prince, Richardson on Evidence (11th ed. and 12th ed.).
From 2016 to 2019, Hon. Steven M. Gold, Magistrate Judge for the U.S. District Court of the EDNY and Professor Cameron W. Arnold provided expert advisement to the Prince problem-writing team; Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak of the EDNY partnered with Arnold from 2020 to 2021 and with Professor Eric Yap in 2022.
Since 2023, U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cho of the EDNY, who is also an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law, has joined Yap to advise the Prince team.
Unique, Creative Cases
Typically, moot court competition arguments are based on already-decided cases. But Prince Competition cases involve new, unsettled issues of law that could result from previously settled cases.
“The students draw on their legal knowledge, writing skills, and creativity to collaboratively create a complex moot court problem from scratch—a unique experience unlike any other in law school,” said Yap. “It was immensely rewarding to mentor this year’s talented team, who have crafted a compelling and timely problem that will come to life in the 40th edition of the Prince Competition.”
“I remember it was a lot of work, very intense, and fun,” said 2014 writing team member Rebecca Gannon ’14, currently a staff attorney in the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Appeals Bureau who in recent years returned to judge preliminary Prince rounds. “You’re like a law professor writing an exam, finding where there is some case law to make arguments, but the law itself is not settled. One of the two issues we worked with had to do with the [Sixth Amendment’s] Confrontation Clause and it was then being litigated in the Supreme Court. In Prince, you think three steps ahead—that the Supreme Court may have decided one issue, but what could it look toward in the future?”
Members of the problem-writing team also go above and beyond creating the case, drafting a detailed bench memorandum for the judges, which explains the relevant facts, issues, and arguments. “Many judges have told me they keep those bench memos; that they’re a great resource,” Bentele said. “If they have an issue that was dealt with at the Prince Competition, they already have excellent research.”
A Twist of Fate in Prince History
One of the most dramatic moments in a Prince competition occurred in 1987, after the final round had been judged, and a student from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law team (which had won first place) had been named best oralist. “The student, who at that point was still only known by his team number, had this booming bass voice and such impressive arguments; it was as if he were singing an opera,” said Bentele.
The student stood and asked to address Jack Weinstein, the final-round judge. He said his name was Orville Stifel, and that he had previously been convicted of a crime based on evidence from an expert witness. Yet he had claimed his innocence, and that exculpatory evidence had been suppressed by the prosecution. While serving 11 years in prison, he had kept working diligently on his own legal research and, when fighting the case in the courts, he had written to Weinstein, as an expert on evidence, to support his post-conviction motion, which Weinstein had done. Stifel thanked the judge, and said that because of Weinstein, he had won his case in 1984, giving him the opportunity to go to law school.
Margaret Berger, in the audience, told Bentele that the case, U.S. vs. Stifel, 594 F. Supp. 1525 (N.D. Ohio 1984), was so important that it had been included in the evidence manual she had co-authored with Weinstein.
The Lighter Side of Prince
Amid all the serious issues of law involved in the writing of the Prince problems, advisers, especially Pitler, encouraged the students to have a little fun. One case involving narcotics distribution out of a candy store featured defendant William Wonka, informant Mr. Goodbar, and Judge Godiva. MCHS students also brought competition themes to life through songs they wrote and performed.
In a 2009 wire and securities fraud case, Jason “Jay” Braiman ’09, now a litigation associate at Roberts & Roberts, turned Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” into “Like a Sub-Prime Loan.”
For a 2013 case involving conspiracy to deal unlawfully in firearms and conspiracy to commit unlawful takings under the Endangered Species Act, Michael Locke ’13, now senior legal counsel at healthcare group Demant, penned words to “When I See an Elephant Fly,” from the Disney film Dumbo: “I saw an evil man/Make an evil plan/I saw some guns that he’s trying to buy/And I think it’s mean/To make some green/By planning to make elephants die.”
Moot Court Honor Society Makes It All Happen
Without the hard work and ingenuity of Brooklyn Law’s robust Moot Court Honor Society, there would be no Prince Competition. From the executive board to the competition organizers, writers, alumni judges, and volunteers, the MCHS has made Prince a success for four decades and a point of pride for the Law School since its inception.
“With more than 2,000 alumni, the Moot Court Honor Society is undisputed proof of a longstanding Brooklyn Law tradition to develop trial and appellate advocacy skills,” said Caplow. “As competitors at schools all over the country and abroad as ambassadors of the Law School, they impress judges and lawyers wherever they go, as well as regularly winning prizes and recognition. The reputation of the Law School is greatly enhanced by these dedicated and talented students.”
Let’s make the 40th Anniversary competition another one to remember. Join us on April 5 for the final round and the Moot Court Honor Society reunion reception!